Ramin Mazur – On the Left Bank / Expansion

Photography from Transnistria and Crimea

In a time of news overload, Moldovan photographer Ramin Mazur offers a quiet glimpse into the everyday life of European regions that would otherwise remain unseen. He focuses on the calm after the political storm. His pictures show the pausing, the taking a breath. He visualises the quiet, rather unspectacular tones, which, however, often describe life in these frozen conflict zones more aptly than dramatically pointed reporting. He portrays regions that are marked by political states of emergency and the associated loss of identity. He is not interested in clear answers, but in conveying a feeling for life on the ground.

“On the Left Bank” was created by a return trip of the photographer to his hometown Rybnitza in Transnistria, a de facto independent part of the Republic of Moldova due to Russian support. Originally, he wanted to depict the divided country and the people’s search for identity. In the process, he realised that at first he was only scratching the surface. He decided to visit his homeland more often. To document the everyday life of the people who stayed there, to find memories of his childhood and to get a feeling for the place that is losing more and more of its inhabitants.

For “Expansion”, Ramin Mazur travelled to Crimea several times in 2014, a few weeks after the Russian annexation, to get a feeling for the atmosphere on the peninsula. He paid particular attention to the Crimean Tatars, whose culture has not only shaped life in the Crimea for centuries, but which has also been repeatedly disputed by foreign rule.

Ramin Mazur is a documentary photographer. He combines a classical approach with new forms of visual language in the art of photography. Ramin Mazur lives and works as a photographer in Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova. He studied in Chisinau and New York, among other places, has been exhibited several times and repeatedly realises his own long-term documentary projects.

Courated by Matthias Schumann

The exhibition takes place in cooperation with n_ost.

A exhibition of Kultur Aktiv (Germany) in collaboration with Ta(r)dino 6 Art Platform (Azerbaijan) and IZOLYATSIA Platform for Cultural Initiatives (Ukraine), funded by the Culture of Solidarity program of the European Cultural Foundation and the German Federal Agency for Civic Education.